This disclosure generally relates to online systems, and more specifically to identifying a user across multiple online systems based on image data (e.g., profile photos) associated with the user.
With the increasing number of available online systems, such as social networking systems, users may be individually registered across a wide number of online systems. Each time the user registers with an online system, the user has a new user profile that may be unique to that particular online system. Users may use each online system for different purposes. For example, a user may primarily utilize a first online system as a social online network, utilize a second online system for visual storytelling, and primarily utilize a third online system as a professional online network. Thus, users may choose to provide different information (e.g., different profile photos) in their user profile on each respective online system.
Online systems often utilize the information provided by a user in the user profile for a variety of purposes. For example, online systems may desire to deliver content items that are tailored for a user based on the user's interests and/or characteristics that are listed in the user's profile. However, given that a user may only choose to provide a portion of his/her characteristics or interests to any one online system, each online system may not have a full understanding of the user. Furthermore, a user may choose to use a different profile photo for each respective online system. This leads to inefficiencies, e.g., failure to identify a same user across multiple online systems, especially in the context of content delivery where the lack of a comprehensive profile of the user may lead to the delivery of content that is poorly tailored to the user.